


Fascination

by Viridian5



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst, Costume Parties & Masquerades, Halloween, Halloween Costumes, Holiday, Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1998-10-28
Updated: 1998-10-28
Packaged: 2017-10-02 07:34:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Viridian5/pseuds/Viridian5
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone loves Halloween treats.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fascination

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for "The Red and the Black" and _The X-Files: Fight the Future_.
> 
> Thanks to Feklar for righteous beta. Thanks to Te for initial advice and almost-beta. I came so close to tricking her into it...

_"I really have to see you.  
Smile at me slyly,  
Another festive compromise."_  
  -- "Other Voices" by the Cure  
\--------------------------------------------

"But, Scully, the party isn't for another two weeks." Mulder's voice came out whinier than he liked.

She only gripped his arm tighter and dragged him into the costume shop at greater speed. She was small but strong. "I know you, Mulder. You'll procrastinate until the very end, then walk in dressed in your usual suit and claim you're going as an FBI agent."

"Give me more credit for originality. I'd wear the suit and tell everyone I was a stockbroker." But Mulder stopped fighting. If he didn't surrender now, he would hear about it for the next two weeks. And hear about it, and hear about it.... "It's just a party."

"It's a mandatory bureau function."

"Which is the only reason why I'm going. You didn't hear the threats Skinner made to me."

"Now that our department has higher visibility, we have to get more involved with other agents." Scully didn't sound very enthused either.

As good as it felt to have gotten some validation for the X-Files, Mulder hated the spotlight it put on him and his partner. He didn't mind making a spectacle of himself for important matters, but being put on display at a party made him uncomfortable. Patterson used to do that sort of thing, introducing any higher-ups he could grab to his protege _//as if//_ and the Violent Crime unit's golden boy, Spooky Mulder. From the way they'd looked at him, Mulder felt like they'd expected him to start biting the heads off of live chickens.

Throwing his career aside for the X-Files had transformed him from a useful freakshow to a delusional one. No one wanted to play power politics with the insane disappointment who'd squandered his gifts. It took him out of the dog and pony show, to his great relief. He enjoyed the basement's quiet and solitude. He no longer had to summon the effort to schmooze people, something he knew he wasn't very good at anyway.

Mulder knew that had to change. He had an unprecedented opportunity to bring so many truths to light, and the X-Files needed him to be a kind of spokesman. Scully couldn't do it all, nor should she.

He was beaten. He could at least try to lose with some grace.

"What will you be wearing?" Mulder asked.

"It's a surprise. I don't want you to try to match me; we'd look like a theme couple."

She didn't have to say that enough people already referred to them as "Mr. and Mrs. Spooky," thus efficiently managing to offend them both at once. He knew, and hated, that the label made its most pointed dig at her. Hearing it whispered in their wake prompted the kind of homicidal urges that he had to restrain--now, more than ever.

They wandered through rows overflowing with cloth and plastic, redolent with the scent of dust. They fought their way through an overgrown jungle of capes and petticoats. Eyeless masks stared at them from every direction. Props hung on the walls and from the ceiling.

From the raw material in this crowded room, he could become anything or anyone. The jumble of characters he saw left him more at a loss than before they'd arrived.

An elderly man suddenly appeared from behind a large, ornate, medieval gown. "Welcome to The Backstage," he said. "Do you know what you're looking for, or would you like some help deciding on an outfit?"

Scully stepped forward. "My friend could use some help."

"I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up," Mulder said darkly.

"I know our selection can be intimidating. I'll show you through our men's section and see if anything piques your interest." As they walked, the salesman said, "Aliens are very popular this year--"

"No aliens!" they both shouted, then looked embarrassed.

The old man shrugged. "I understand. Something can be _too_ popular."

"Exactly," Scully said with a grin. Mulder just sighed.

They passed costumes for werewolves, astronauts, Klingons, pirates, vampires, Zorro, super heroes, Bill Clinton, horror movie killers, soldiers, Frankenstein's monster, and most of the cast of the _Star Wars_ movies. "With this outfit, you could be a Man In Black or one of the Blues Brothers," Scully said with a smirk.

"No and no, thanks," Mulder answered. A long drift of black cloth caught his eye. He'd expected it to feel coarse, but it ran and flowed through his fingers with the softness of silk.

Scully arched an eyebrow. "You want to go as the Grim Reaper?"

"Death never needs an invitation." He took down the hanger. The costume consisted of a long, hooded robe, a cowl, and gloves, all in impenetrable black.

"There's a friendly gesture to introduce us to the rest of the bureau," Scully said with a sigh.

"A perennial favorite," the salesman said. "All you need is makeup and a scythe, or the mask from _Scream_ and a knife."

"Just makeup. I don't want to be carrying a prop all night."

"God forbid."

He grinned at her. "This feels right. Trust me, Scully."

"That's when I trust you the least."

  


* * *

  
Mulder's feelings progressed from petty annoyance to outright dread the closer he got to the night. He knew he was being stupid. He'd faced liver-eating mutants, cold-blooded killers, and lethal, shapeshifting aliens, among other threats to his life and sanity. One evening at a costume party should have been easy.

It didn't matter.

The night of the party, Halloween night itself, Mulder stood under the glaring white light in his bathroom and tucked his hair under the cowl. Scully would be coming to pick him up in an hour, so he was running out of time. As much as it irked him to have her as a babysitter, it also made him feel cared for and almost happy. _//I'm a mess._

_//I should have thrown myself under a bus yesterday.//_

Mulder applied the white face paint and watched his usual self slowly disappear. The package claimed the paint glowed in the dark, an assertion he tested as soon as he got it home. Not only did it work, it also glowed a nice luminous white instead of green.

Once he had all traces of actual flesh tones hidden, he lined his eyes in black pencil. It brought back long ago London nights, when the sudden absence of his father's judgmental, condemning glare had been intoxicating. He'd gone a little wild at first from the freedom, but Phoebe had quickly brought him back in line.

Looking at his stark white face and black-rimmed eyes in the mirror, Mulder pondered his next move. A little more liner around the eyes and making his lips black would transform him into Bergman's Death. Or _Bill &amp; Ted's Bogus Journey_'s Death. But it didn't feel right to him.

Mulder stared at his face for a few more minutes before picking up the container of black.

  


* * *

  
Dana Scully knocked on the door before opening it with her key. It gave him some warning if he wasn't... decent yet. _//Is he ever?//_ He should have been fully dressed by now, but Mulder could make an art of procrastination. She'd come by to pick him up just to make sure. _//Not that I'd mind seeing him-- Down, girl.//_

That near-kiss in the hallway, the near-kiss she spent so much time trying not to think about, came back to the front of her mind. They still hadn't talked about it. She knew it would never have happened if Mulder hadn't been so scared of losing her. But with their partnership returned, they once again had something to lose if it all went wrong.

Lost in thought, Scully almost squeaked in fright when an ominous figure in flowing black loomed out of the bathroom and scared the hell out of her. Not that she would ever let him see that. "Mulder?" He had the hood up, covering his head and shielding his face in thick shadows. "Let me see your makeup." All that black sighed, then complied.

He'd painted his face to look like a skull. His usually green-gold eyes looked black in the centers of artfully rendered empty sockets. He'd blacked out his nose, making it seem to disappear when you looked at him from the front, an incredible feat. Dark shading under his cheekbones and well-drawn teeth over his lips completed the effect.

He'd done an incredible job, so why did it disturb her so?

Mulder couldn't help grinning when he got a good look at his partner. Scully wore a body-hugging, faux velvet, short-skirted garnet-colored dress with slits up the sides, fishnet stockings, and high-heeled leather boots that laced up to just below her knees. Deep red lips and darkly lined eyes had a dramatic effect against her pale skin. Her makeup, so well-applied, made him wonder if Bill Scully's dutiful daughter had flirted with a few wild looks in her youth too. She had long nails that were red with white tips, like Drusilla's on _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_. Scully looked intensely sexy, and somehow managed to do it without crossing the line into sleazy.

Then she smiled, revealing fang teeth. Mulder's grin widened as he saw how completely he'd corrupted her. She was a vamp, in both senses of the word. Not only had she dressed as something paranormal, but she'd also utilized a bad sense of humor, not unlike his own, in doing so.

"But you still don't believe in vampires, I know," Mulder said.

"After six years, you better, Mulder."

  


* * *

  
When they reached the hall, Skinner met them at the door. "How come he's not wearing a costume?" Mulder hissed softly to Scully, who shushed him.

"Good evening, sir," she said and enjoyed the widening of her boss' eyes when he saw her.

"Good evening, Scully... Mulder?"

"Don't worry, I'm not working tonight. You went as a bureau assistant director, sir?" Mulder winced as Scully elbowed him.

"I'm working as a kind of chaperone, Agent Mulder. I don't have to wear a costume."

_//Wish I could have used that.//_ "I guess thinking like that is why they pay you the big bucks, sir."

"Damn right. Enjoy the party, and try not to piss anyone off, Mulder."

"You have us pegged all wrong. Scully's the hellraiser."

Skinner sighed and had a long-suffering look as he let them in. The music hit them like a wall of sheer force, even as the lights blinded them. _//I think I feel a flashback coming on,//_ Mulder thought facetiously, but he soon adjusted. The large crowd panicked him a little, but simultaneously made him feel more secure in the obvious evidence that every agent in the bureau had been forced to show up. _//Hunh. It's_ not _all about me.//_

  


* * *

  
As Alex Krycek made conversation with an agent dressed like _South Park_'s Chef, his eyes scanned the crowd in a manner entirely consistent with his costume. _//Who are you tonight, Foxlet?//_ He knew Scully and Skinner would force Mulder to show up. Alex only had to find him.

Social functions usually made Mulder uncomfortable, and Alex always found Mulder's discomfort entertaining. He wondered what his former partner had made of that kiss months ago. _//You seemed to be into it at the time....//_

Alex took advantage of his anonymity and bided his time. When he saw Scully, who looked incredible, walk around with one of the Grim Reapers, he had his answer. Now he just had to reel Mulder in.

  


* * *

  
Scully went up on tiptoe--almost falling onto Mulder from her inexperience in wearing those high, high heels--and shouted, "We should try to mingle."

"Make nice with the friendly agents?"

She smirked. "Maybe I should mingle. Try not to start any fights." Then the DJ tried to get an Electric Slide going. "Oh, my God."

"If he starts the Macarena, plug your ears and run for the door."

"Like I needed you to tell me that?"

Scully smiled and walked away, instantly attracting a crowd. _//She wore the right outfit for "mingling," that's for sure. I don't think anyone will be making "Ice Queen" comments for a long time after this.//_ Another Death, this one made up like Bergman's, saluted Mulder with his scythe. _//That could have been embarrassing. Imagine my chagrin if someone else came to the ball wearing the same face as me....//_

Feeling like he had been sent back through time to a torturous high school dance, Mulder got himself a cup of punch and immediately started to look for a secluded corner. The punch had an immediate alcoholic kick under the fruity sweetness, prompting amused speculation about who might have spiked the bowl. _//I better take it easy with this stuff. I have the feeling I could really fuck myself up on this pretty easily.//_

The punch seemed to have made most of the agents here much... friendlier, though none of them would reveal their identities. _//Sort of invalidates the whole "making contacts" excuse, but no one ever asks me about anything.//_ One tipsy woman dressed as Julie Newmarr's Catwoman, which gained her a few points with him, demanded a dance with him. Well, actually she demanded a dance with Death. _//And they call_ me _"Spooky."//_ He obliged, even if their "dance" actually consisted of him trying to stop her from falling on her face.

But his feeling of bemused and superior sobriety started to fade under a growing warmth. He started to feel really _good_.... _//After only one cup? What a wimp. Better sit down.//_

When Scully caught up with him, her eyes glowed, and her face looked flushed. "You seem to be making friends," he said.

"It's not as bad as I thought it would be. I saw you dancing with Catwoman earlier."

"I danced; she lurched."

"I came over to tell you that Agent Spender is looking for you, probably to give you a piece of his mind. He may have been at the punch. He's dressed as a pirate."

"It cheers my heart to see you watching my back."

"Mulder, you're bombed."

"Nope, just lightly toasted. I'm fine. Have fun, Scully."

"Don't worry. I'll make us look good." She giggled when he stuck out his tongue at her. _//Maybe she hit the punch too?//_

After he watched her walk away--which, in that dress and those boots, was very arousing--Mulder noticed something out of the corner of his eye. When he turned to look, his breath caught.

A man sumptuously dressed as some sort of predatory bird watched Mulder. The lights showed deep blue highlights in the black feathers of the sleek headdress that covered his hair and most of his face. The mask piece had a cruelly sharp ivory beak, and, under it, blue-black lips smiled. Vaguely triangular eyeholes revealed dark, gleaming eyes surrounded by blue-black makeup to blend with the look of the feathers that hid his face and trailed like fringe from the back and sleeves of his suede jacket. The soft pants fit so closely, you could almost see his pulse. Either he wore a large codpiece beneath them, or he was really happy to see something. Or someone. The "talons" strapped over the knuckles of similarly blue-black leather gloves were cat's claws, actual weapons, the three metal blades on each capped with ivory.

The costume was stunning, and gave the stranger the look of an aboriginal shaman.

Mulder knew Alex Krycek when he saw him.

Mulder couldn't help himself. He stood up and followed where Krycek led. His former partner walked with a sleek grace that made Mulder glad his costume was a shapeless robe. Those pants were more lewd than nakedness. _//As if you didn't want to jump him the moment you saw him standing there.//_

When they reached a darkened storage area behind a partition _//Amazing how Krycek knew exactly where this was....//_, Mulder asked, "What the hell are you doing here?"

Krycek moved closer. When he spoke, his soft, rasping voice slid across Mulder's skin. "I used to be an agent, so I have every right to be here. Besides, it makes me happy to think everyone will remember me, but no one will know who I was...." He stroked the cloth of Mulder's robe, sighing at how unexpectedly soft it was.

"I can't believe you came here just to crash the party."

"You're right."

"Must be a fluke."

That beak was so close.... Mulder couldn't help himself. He kissed it and reveled in its smooth hardness. He'd expected it to be cold, but it was warm from being so close to Krycek's skin. Aching, he moved in so close he could feel the heat the other man gave off, and his breath stirred the feathers on the headdress. Mulder wanted so badly to touch them, to see if they felt as soft as they looked. He took off his gloves and put them in one of the robe's hidden pockets.

Krycek smirked. "You're ruining your makeup, Mulder. I worry about you sometimes. Your choice of costume.... Some people dress up as who they think they really are, some people as who they wish they were, others as who they think they aren't. But we all dress up as what fascinates us.... With that skull, you're not just Death, you're _dead_."

"You're so perceptive, you should be a federal agent."

"Are you drunk, Mulder?" Krycek asked in a low purr.

"A little." Mulder's hands took on a life of their own and stroked the feathers that covered the back of Krycek's head and neck. They were so soft, but also sharp and fine. They caressed his fingers.

"That's just fine." With one hand, Krycek pulled Mulder closer. Even through the layers of robe, Mulder felt it when their bodies met, hardness to hardness. He groaned, then shivered as he felt the capped blades of his former partner's talons press into his back. Krycek smiled knowingly.

He wanted to kiss Krycek but the mask, beautiful as it was, kept getting in the way. "Could you take that thing off? The beak's blocking me from getting at your lips."

"Can't have that." When Krycek took it off, his short hair stood up in places, wild and disheveled. The blue-black lips and triangles around his eyes gave him an exotic look. "Mmmm... let's see if we can raise the dead, shall we, Mulder?"

"Your sense of humor always sucked, Krycek."

When they kissed, they smeared one another with makeup, though Mulder's stayed much closer to intact. Krycek briefly wondered what Mulder had used to set it before avid lips nibbled a warm path down his neck and long-fingered hands stroked him through the thin cloth of his pants. Seeing what looked like a faintly glowing skull nuzzling at his skin gave him a pleasurable jolt of atavistic fear to combine with lust.

His former partner's robe confounded him. "Where the hell are you under this thing anyway?"

"Find me."

Mulder's voice, low and rough against his skin, made Krycek breathe faster. "I want you out of that thing. I at least want to see your hair."

Mulder whipped the cowl off, revealing whorls of fascinatingly disheveled hair. Unable to take his gloves off without unstrapping the talons first, Krycek had to find another way to feel it on his skin, so he rubbed his face against it. As Mulder tried to grind him into the wall, Krycek tried to find the man under all that cloth. Almost unconsciously, he started to scratch away at it with his talons.

Mulder finally stepped back and pulled the robe off over his head, leaving himself in pants and old combat boots. Krycek immediately took advantage of the opportunity to leave blue-black rosettes on his bare chest before wrapping already swollen lips around a hard nipple. It only got harder as the former agent applied sharp teeth.

As Mulder's hands clenched in soft hair, suede, and feathers, he took a dazed moment to wonder how they got here so fast. He soon decided he could better use his mind figuring out how to get those damned skintight pants down. As his hands wandered, he could feel a slight wet spot on the front, which made him wonder if Krycek had worn underwear at all. He'd find out soon.

Krycek moaned and writhed maddeningly as Mulder peeled the pants down over a prodigious erection. No underwear. The rake of capped talons, followed by fingers in soft leather, over his bare back forced him to undo his own pants. The thought of the sharp, sharp metal underneath the ivory caps made him breathe harder. Then three lines of pressure moved down his ass, lower and lower....

"Krycek, if you don't stop that, I'm going to come now," Mulder gasped.

Krycek's eyes looked mad and frenzied. "Mulder, I want you to fuck me; I need you to--"

"We don't have--"

"In my jacket."

Mulder, almost as frenzied, rummaged under the jacket; his rough explorations only excited Krycek more. Mulder briefly thought of asking why he had brought condoms and slick but figured Krycek knew that just wearing those pants guaranteed he would get some. Mulder pulled his prizes out at last and put the condom on.

Mulder guided Krycek to the floor as gently as he could at that moment. Krycek instinctively spread his legs to give Mulder access, and the older man immediately put the slick to use. Alex bit his lip to stop his harsh cry at feeling the cold slick meet burning heat.

"Just do it, Mulder!" he choked out as he raised his hips.

Mulder stroked all the way in, then pulled almost all the way out before slamming forward again, quickly setting a hard, demanding rhythm. The friction Krycek's cock felt, trapped between them, made him moan and thrash harder. In the dimness, Mulder's skull paint glowed white. _//I'm being fucked by Death, and it feels so damned_ good_...//_ And why not? Death was his way of life, and he'd been making out with the Reaper for years. He kissed all the skin he could reach and smiled at the blue-black marks, looking so much like bruises, his lips left.

"Come for me, Alex, c'mon," Death said with Mulder's voice. His hand snaked down to pull and milk Alex's cock.

_//Why am I mindfucking_ myself_?_

_//Because it's_ fun_....//_ The pleasure, too much, too intense, was killing him. He came with a scream. Mulder, sent over the edge by the feeling of Alex's muscles clenching around him, blunted his own shriek by biting Krycek's shoulder.

As they collapsed in a sticky, tangled heap, Alex realized that Mulder had positioned his head right on top of the soft robe. _//So sweet, Foxlet....//_ He also realized that he'd drawn blood in raking scratches up and down the left side of Mulder's back. He licked the blood from one talon. "You taste so good, Mulder."

Mulder mumbled something into Krycek's neck. When Alex turned the older man's face toward him, he saw that whole patches of the skull makeup had rubbed off, revealing regular skin tone underneath. "Looks like I brought you back from the dead," he said.

Mulder looked at the man, smeared with his white and black, underneath him. He knew he must have blue-black marks of his own. The sex had burned off some of the alcohol, leaving him almost sober and a bit confused. He knew he had been attracted to Krycek since that kiss; he just never thought he'd have Alex begging him for a reaming the next time they met.

"What do we do now?" Mulder gasped.

"We clean up. Then, we go again, a little slower. You game?"

_//Am I?//_ "Yeah." Then real life came back to him. "Scully's going to drive me home eventually. What time is it?"

"Mulder, I don't have a fucking-- Wait, a clock over there says 12:30."

October had passed into November, All Hallow's Eve had turned into All Saints' Day. Something new had started. "We have a few hours." Mulder laughed softly. "Scully told me to mingle."

 

### End


End file.
